What Happens After The Story Ends
by LawyerGirl1
Summary: "He did this for her and she doesn't thank him." Dean explains his marriage to his daughter. Written to fill in the blanks after Dean leaves the show.


As he turns down the familiar street, following the route on auto-pilot, he finds himself reflecting. Remembering. Enduring.

In many ways, indeed in most ways, he was living the white picket fence dream.

The fence around their four-bedroom house wasn't white; it was a sturdy brown oak overgrown with ivy and buds of jasmine and small pink roses. It was tacitly agreed that the front garden belonged to Mom; she planted and pruned and beware the soul, child or canine, which interfered. On the front porch was a two-seat swing with homemade cushions; they sat there during the last lazy days of her pregnancies and he supposes the children will start cuddling with their respective boyfriends there soon. Out in the back yard, the territory long claimed as Terra Juvenile, was a swimming pool and a rock pond and a tree house he had built himself. Lindsay had made the curtains as per the children's request; princesses with delicate shoes abdicating their thrones to dinosaurs with wide smiles, a pattern that combined Barbara's passion for the past with Kelly's love of fantasy and fairy tales.

And it had been a long time since he parked in the driveway and looked at the house, for a moment believing that the happy face greeting him at the door will be Rory. That she'll take his coat with a solicitous kiss, handing him a frosty cocktail or warm cocoa and leading him to the kitchen, already suffused with the smell of herbs and butter, heralding the nourishing dinner to come.

It was a fool's dream, to believe that Rory would be a Donna Reed housewife like that. Despite the gingham dress with the wide circumference, the potatoes from a box and the beans from a tin, she wasn't. It was becoming clear to Dean that women, who used to be categorised as either saints or sinners, Madonnas or whores, now were as clearly and definitely categorised as Housewives or Townwives. Housewives make brightly patterned cushions for front porch swings from scrap material; Townwives take pride in their inability to sew or stitch or knit once, purl twice. Housewives plan and cook effortlessly elaborate meals for their families, managing to amalgamate everyone's likes and dislikes into a dish inevitably tasty; Townwives either pop something into the microwave or order the usual from a Chinese deli. He supposes it was sexist, politically incorrect, possibly misogynist to think like this.

But it didn't make it wrong.

And, as much as Dean admired the Townwives strutting past the construction site with their stiletto's and their suits and their perfectly manicured hands, he preferred the Housewives in jeans and T-shirts who always grasped their children's sticky hands before crossing the road. He could appreciate the slinky walk of a Townwife who knows she's getting whistles and crows from the construction crew, but he preferred the way a Housewife was absorbed in her children and her shopping list and her errands.

His mother was like that.

And, inevitably, his wife was like that too.

He imagines he's expected to pine for Rory, to finish a rough day's work in a dive bar, mumbling her name into his last pull of beer. Telling the bartender all about the girl he once dated, the girl whose face is now all over CNN. That the voice who talks so intelligently about foreign affairs and the situation in the Middle East once whispered sweet nothings to him. That the soft velvety lips once kissed him, that the blue eyes once sparkled at him. Turning into a stereotypical Tom-Waits-meets-Bruce-Springsteen caricature. Then stumbling to his bachelor flat in a haze of smoke, accompanied by ghosts of friends he once had, crawling into bed and greeting each dawn with a hungover groan.

Instead, he goes home, has supper with his family, helps his daughters with their homework and makes love to his wife. He gets up earlier than is necessary to go jogging with his oldest daughter; she is training for the track team and, although their neighbourhood is Norman Rockwell safe, he will not take chances. Psychopaths and stalkers and serial killers may be a long way away, but accidents and broken ankles and angry dogs can happen to anyone. And neither will happen to his daughter while he is around. He's neither Tom Waits nor Bruce Springsteen; he is a half-cocked Clark Kent instead.

He doesn't know if he's happy – who ever does? It has become the fashion to sigh despondently when friends enquire, to imagine that every headache is a migraine and to call every swing in mood a bipolar episode. He noticed this among the clients he works for; the wealthy who do not appreciate how happy they are and create miseries to validate their otherwise luxurious existences. It is only the sudden emergencies, the court appearances and the visits to the hospital and the arrangements with the morgue, that makes them realises what happiness is. It is the sudden catastrophes which throw everyday life into immediate relief, showing one that little niggles about weight and new cars and broken hearts are not the histrionic dramas one fondly imagines them to be.

(Histrionic. Rory taught him that word. She used it once, in one of their many quibbles about Jess. Quibbles which now seemed like so much candyfloss.)

"Hi, Dad," Barbara greets him. She is curled up in the porch swing, legs tucked underneath her, and in the jeans and sweatshirt she looks startlingly like her mother. For a moment, he just looks at her, remembering how her mother used to be, and then remembers to smile at her. He sits down on the porch swing next to her, asking her about her day and the Chemistry test she wrote.

"I have to ask you something for my History class," she finally asks. "I have to make a genealogy project, showing our family history, and I want to make it more interesting. Like writing a short story or a newspaper article or something about it."

"You've got that creative streak from your mother," Dean grins. "I would just have done the project the way the teacher asked me to do."

Barbara sticks out her tongue at him. "So will you help me?"

"As far as I can."

"Great." She pulls out a pen and notepad from her pocket. "How did you and Mom meet?"

"We went to school together."

Barbara rolls her eyes at him. "There's the kind of detail I crave."

"Well, it happened like this ..."

_He's angrily stacking the tins of cranberries; acutely aware of and annoyed at everything. His green Doose's Market apron. His floppy hair. The dull ache in the pit of his stomach, the joylessness around his heart which reminds him that it's over between him and Rory. Not the end of the world, he tells himself. She'll soon realise that the overly moussed nephew of Luke's is no good, no good for her or for her Harvard dreams. _

_A motion outside the window catches his eye. It's football hero Chuck Presby, having a fight with his girlfriend. Nice one, Chuck. Picking on a girl on the sidewalk, fighting with her where everyone can see and hear. Real nice._

_Then he remembers the way he yelled at Rory at the dance marathon and feels a punch of guilt. _

_He looks back at the blonde girl Chuck is yelling at and tries to remember her name. Lucy? Ashleigh? Ah, Lindsay. Quiet girl, always surrounded with two or three giggling generic girls. Something about the swish of her hair and the corner of her mouth reminds him of Clara; he wonders what he would feel like if he saw Clara's boyfriend treating her this way and his feet leads him out the door. _

_He can't remember what he yelled at Chuck, but he remembers a feeling of smug satisfaction as Chuck turns tail. He looks at Lindsay and wonders if he should pat her on the shoulder; he would have with Clara, but the realisation that the crying girl is not his baby sister makes him feel shy, awkward, stupid._

"_Thank you," she says between her tears. "He was being a jerk."_

"_That's his reputation," he replies._

"And so you started dating after that?"

"Not immediately. But we did become friends and then there was a dance at the school, so we went together. It was good, so we decided to start dating."

"And how did you propose to her?"

Dean looks at his daughter. "Shouldn't you be asking your mother this?"

"She's at her book club tonight, remember," Barbara says. "Besides, if I ask you both, I get both perspectives on what happened. Bet you your favourite screwdriver that Mom will remember more detail about the dance."

"It happened so long ago. You can't expect me to remember every single detail about every single date," Dean protests.

Besides, a different dance is imprinted on his mind. A swatch of dark blue silk; the words of Dorothy Parker; the jewellery in her hair like fallen stars. He doesn't want any details of that night to stray into his talk with his daughter, can't risk her asking her mother about Lorelai's girl and the boy from the market.

"Do you at least remember how you proposed to her?" Barbara asks.

"Remember our house rule. Sarcasm is grounds for grounding," he warns with a laugh, then tells her about how he proposed to her mother.

_Kyle has been stressing about the coasters and wondering aloud if there were extra ones in the linen closet upstairs. He volunteers to go find out and Lindsay stays in the kitchen, helping Kyle to mop up the beer stains on the kitchen linoleum. As he walks upstairs, Rory comes running down, her nose red and her eyes sad. He asks her what is wrong, then sees Jess. Sees Jess's look and grunt and the way Rory flinches at his disapproval. _

_And months of misery and recriminations propels him, makes him grab Jess's shoulder and spin that little punk around. How satisfying it was. The brown eyes, always so mocking and cocksure, widen in disbelief, even a touch of surprised fear, as Dean lands the first punch. Oh, how satisfying. He should've punched Jess a long time ago. _

_They tussle and fight and punch and kick and he's vaguely aware of the sounds around him. The splintering of furniture, the crash of glass. Rory's voice, pleading that they stop. Shouts and encouragements from his classmates, most of whom would like to see Jess get beaten to a pulp. Even the girls who found his broody James Dean behaviour sexy, dislikes the way he treats Rory; they want him to beat up Jess to show the rest of the boys that being a punk doesn't pay. _

_Then, as they tumble outside, he becomes aware of something else entirely. The sobering air playing on his skin, dancing merrily with the blue light from the police siren. The inner scream, which he ignored, telling him that he is not like this. That he does not fight with jerks at parties, that he does not smash his way through somebody else's house. Perhaps, for a moment, he had though that Rory would see what Lindsay did – that he protected his women, that he treats his girlfriends properly and doesn't go out of his way to try and hurt those closest to him. Perhaps, even for the briefest moment, he though that this would make Rory fall in love with him again. However uncharacteristic his fighting was._

_But then he hears her call Jess's name, sees her go over to Lane. No thought left for him. No look at him, not even a glance at his direction._

_He did this for her and she doesn't thank him._

_And in that moment, he realises how he idolised her. How he idealised her. No Rory could live up to the image he had constructed in his mind, no flesh-and-blood could match this fairy of perfection. _

_Except, perhaps, Lindsay._

_Lindsay._

_His heart calls her name over his mind's throbbing and he looks up to the door, wanting to go inside Kyle's house, to tell her how much she means to him._

_She's standing on the step, the blue light playing across her face, highlighting the shock and the sorrow on her mind. That her boyfriend would get into a fight with his ex-girlfriend's boyfriend. He couldn't justify that to her. Or to himself. The only justification was the truth – that he was angry with Jess for messing Rory around because he still idolised Rory, that he wanted to hurt the little punk who hurt him, that he wanted Rory to realise what she lost in him. And once he had punched him, once he had felt the gratifying sag of Jess's flesh under his fist, once he had pummelled the boy who pummelled his dreams – it was over. He had exorcised his feelings for Rory; she had confirmed it by showing him no concern._

_His concern was now Lindsay. He runs up the steps to her, moving slower than he would've thought. He reaches for her and, though she doesn't pull away, she stiffens in his arm. Perhaps, through losing his love for Rory, he had lost Lindsay's love for him. _

"_I think it's time to go home," she says quietly and he walks her to her parents' house, kissing her goodbye. _

_And on his own way home, on his way to the boy he was before Rory, he makes his plans for the future._

_He will explain to his parents what had happened, pre-empt the Stars Hollow gossip with his version, and apologise to them. The next morning, he will go to Kyle's house and apologise to the parents, offering to pay them back for the damages with his Doose's Market money. The next morning, he will go to Lindsay and propose. They belong together; he knows it. She is his Mary Sue – what is so wrong with being beautiful and kind and generous anyway?_

Of course, Dean doesn't answer his daughter's question with this detail. He just tells her about the walk to the lake, the little nervous speech, her mother's happy reply. The reeds by the water, the smell of flowers he couldn't identify and the rush of feelings he half-remembered. More than the feeling of being in love, of being young enough to tackle the future, was the feeling that everything was right. Things were as they should be. He had settled the difficulties, resolved the problems, made everything that was wrong, right again. (Suddenly, parenthetically, Dean wonders how proud Luke would have been of him in that moment.)

"Wow, you guys were really young," Barbara said after he told her about the wedding in the town square. "Weren't you scared that it wasn't going to last?"

"Every relationship has its difficulties. You love Kelly and sometimes she drives you insane," Dean smiles, trying to avoid the answer he most dreaded giving.

"Yeah, but Kelly's my sister. It's pretty much the law that I love her," Barbara points out. "You and Mom had a choice. You could walk away from each other."

"We did."

Barbara looks stunned and Dean shrugs, hoping Lindsay wouldn't be mad at him for telling their daughter. They had always done the suburban thing, fighting behind closed doors in hushed tones and then smiling at the children. Presenting a united front, Lindsay called it. No wonder Barbara thought her parents lived the happily-ever-after tale.

"A year or so after we got married, I had an affair," Dean says. "The girl ... she meant a lot to me when I was younger and I thought that we could continue a different life. I was going to wait for her to finish college, save up my money so that we could start a life together once she graduated. But she was ... well, she was Marilyn Monroe and I was Joe DiMaggio."

Barbara's face is blank. The names meant nothing to her; she could connect Marilyn Monroe's name to the iconic shot of the girl in the dress billowing around her slender figure, but she didn't know who Joe DiMaggio was. Nor did she care, he suspected. He tried to elaborate.

"She came from a wealthy family. Your grandfather sells stereos and your grandmother transcribes medical records."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Barbara protects her grandparents, immediately defensive.

"I know that and you know that, but some of her family didn't know that. Her grandfather was a corporate bigwig and her grandmother was a Daughter of the American Revolution. They could trace back their ancestry to the Mayflower and let me tell you, their ancestors were the ones who looked down on the ship's crew. They were ones to enjoy the fruits of someone else's hard labour, not ones to labour hard themselves."

"What snobs," Barbara says, crinkling her nose.

Dean smiles at her. "True, but they were right. We didn't belong together. We both wanted different things from life. She wanted to travel and explore the world. I wanted to settle down, have a family, work with my hands. They never would have accepted a carpenter in their family and at some stage, she might have felt dissatisfied with me, too. She was always telling me I could do better, could do more."

"You've done all right for yourself," Barbara argues.

Dean smiles again. He has. His experience with Tom had given him some wonderful practice for owning his own construction company. Once the bitterness about Rory had faded and abated, this time final, he had gotten some of his old charm and easy-going ways back. The clients and suppliers and crew all started responding to his affable smile and equable treatment. He had joined Tom in a partnership and when Tom had retired, reluctantly, on doctor's orders, he bought out Tom's share and now owned his own construction company. He was indeed doing well for himself.

Rory and her grandparents probably wouldn't have agreed until he had a string of franchises to his name, he thought.

"Well, after the affair ended, I went through a bad patch. I was unhappy and frustrated and resented the girl for everything that had ever gone wrong. Until I woke up one day, with a hangover, and realised how tired I was of living my life the way I had been. I was making myself miserable, not anyone else. What I've done and the choices I've made, however much they've been influenced by other people, were still my choices." He thought, but didn't add, I woke up wanting to make things right again. Wanting to fix things between myself and my family and my Lindsay. "I phoned your mother for the first time in years to apologise. She hung up on me. I phoned again. She hung up again. I phoned again and her father answered, warning me to stay away from his daughter."

"Gramps was a bad-ass," Barbara laughs.

"So was I. I wouldn't listen. I stopped calling, but I started sending letters and gifts. Flowers. Trinkets. Little things that reminded me of her and that I knew she would like. Eventually, she started replying to my letters. We built up the relationship from that point again. We weren't two young teenagers too much in love to realise what was in store for us, not two children playing house, but two adults who knew what we wanted from life and what we wanted to be."

Lindsay always was the perfect Housewive. He sometimes suspected, when it was three in the morning and he saw her contented sleep, that it was the allure of a white picket fence that drew her back to him. They did look well together. They did match the stereotypical suburban dreams of two children, dogs, a mini-van and holidays with the grandparents in a mountain cabin.

And he was happy with it.

(Rory would have been miserable.)


End file.
